Arsenal Archives - Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources

Just when we thought LEGO might have revealed the last of its Comic-Con International exclusives, the toymaker rolls out another: a minifigure of Arsenal (aka Roy Harper) from Arrow.

Like the Sam Wilson Captain America minifig revealed last week, this too is a giveaway. However, before you get too excited, The Wall Street Journal notes that just 1,500 of them will be available on Thursday, July 9, meaning thousands more LEGO and Arrow fans are going to be sorely disappointed (although some of them will undoubtedly be able to snag one on eBay, for the right price).

Ahead of Saturday’s kickoff of Toy Fair 2015, DC Collectibles has unveiled a lineup that includes the debut of the DC Comics Icons action-figure line, based on the work of artist Ivan Reis, and the first 6-inch-scale Batmobile inspired by Batman: The Animated Series.

Accompanying the Batmobile is the fifth wave of figures from Batman: The Animated Series and The New Batman Adventures — Nightwing, Bane, Mad Hatter and Scarecrow — plus a two-pack from Mask of the Phantasm (MTV News has the full details on the figures). The Batmobile features sliding door access and room for two 6-inch figures.

Some months the solicitations don’t inspire much in the way of analysis. The superhero serials just sort of chug along, and maybe there’ll be an unusual creative team or an idiosyncratic collection to enliven things. Not so with DC’s October solicitations, which include a number of new series, storylines, and creative changes.

This next bit will sound conspiratorial, but I don’t think it’s an unreasonable supposition. I believe — or at least I would not be surprised to learn — that all these debuts and changes are starting in October because that will give them at least six issues to resolve themselves before the big springtime move to the West Coast. For example, six issues is pretty much the minimum for a collection, so if any of the new series just drop immediately into the sales cellar (I’m looking at you, Klarion; say hi to GI Zombie), DC can still have enough for a trade paperback. That’s not to say a reboot is inevitable next spring — notwithstanding one panel in Robin Rising that should jump-start such talk — but I could see a good bit of the superhero line taking a potential victory lap over the fall and winter. (Apparently I am not alone in thinking this.)

Hello and welcome to What Are You Reading?, our weekly look at the books, comics and what have you that the Robot 6 crew have been perusing of late. Today we welcome our special guest Steven Sanders, artist of such comics as Wolverine and the X-Men, Wolverine, S.W.O.R.D, Our Love is Real, The Five Fists of Science and more. He’s currently using Kickstarter to raise funds for a “Creative Commons art book” called Symbiosis.

“Symbiosis is a world-building art book that tells the story of a woman’s travels through a world where the symbiotic relationship that we have with technology is made much more visceral,” the Kickstarter page reads. “All sources of power are generated by bio-etheric engines, with which the operators share a direct mental link. The story-telling is loose and mostly visual. It will be told with art that uses a variety of media and formats: fully painted, colored line art, black-and-white line art, and comic art. What you do with this story is up to you. Enjoy it on its own merits, or take it and spin it off into any of a million different directions.”

To see what Steven and the Robot 6 crew have been reading, click below:

Last week, being full of Christmas cheer made me look back on DC’s 2010 a little more fondly than I might have otherwise.

While I take none of that back — goodwill is never truly wasted — this week isn’t Christmas, and I’m remembering some of the more awkward moments from the year about to pass. After all, 2010 had its share of shock-value deaths and ill-advised changes in direction, and today I want to talk about the biggest ones.

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Probably DC’s most reviled comics of 2010 were the JLA miniseries Cry For Justice and its followup, Rise Of Arsenal. Admittedly, it’s hard for me to talk about Rise because I didn’t read the series itself, just the Justice League issue which tied into it. However, the Internetcovered theminiseries’ excessesso thoroughly I feel like I’ve already read it — or at least gotten the experience of reading it.

Takemiya’s real concern is the same as the ancient Greek playwrights. She is writing to combat hubris, or extreme arrogance. It’s a belief there are no limits to one’s actions and a failure to recognize there are boundaries to life, which if violated will result in one’s destruction. In the old Greek tragedies, hubris was the downfall of the protagonist. The gods swiftly punished those that dared violated divine law or dared to imagine themselves as equal to the gods. Takemiya isn’t worried about divine law, but natural law. She is writing to warn us against the belief that we can become masters of nature and ourselves.

Review:Christopher Allen reviews Tim Hensley’s Wally Gropius, which mimics the style of Harvey comics and relies on a lot of sight gags: “I think the way to approach the book is as a lavish, frequently funny, if superficial, joke.”

Review:Tucker Stone, on the other hand, immerses himself in Jim Woodring’s Weathercraft, which he finds anything but superficial.

Review: It’s good news for readers when Chris Sims hates a book, because it gives him an excuse to perform one of his trademark vivisections, as with this takedown of Justice League: The Rise of Arsenal #3.

Auteurs: You know, there’s something awesome about reading a critique of The Wizard of Id in French. Loleck analyzes the humor of the long-running strip at du9.